A court in Tamil Nadu's Madurai district on Monday awarded death sentence to nine policemen in the custodial deaths of trader P Jayaraj and his son J Benicks in Thoothukudi district that triggered nationwide outrage six years ago. The nine policemen are Inspector Sridhar, Sub-Inspectors Balakrishnan and Raghu Ganesh, and police personnel Murugan, Samadurai, Muthuraja, Chelladurai, Thomas Francis, and Veilumuthu. Underlining that this was a "case of abuse of authority", the court maintained that there are many honest police officers in Tamil Nadu and that the ruling will not "instill fear among police". "Father and son stripped, ruthlessly assaulted... Heart shudders reading about it," the court said.